|
Looking for some feedback on gizzard shad and advice on what to do. We have a 25 acre lake that is highly fertile. We have a large rookery in the area and regularly have to run birds out to other parts of the property to keep them from roosting in the trees in our fishing lake. If we aren't careful we can quickly have tens of thousand of herons, egrets, ibis, etc. setting up shop in our stocked lake. In addition to the birds, approximately half of the lake is covered with cypress trees. We also have duckweed with varying degrees of coverage depending on wind and water fertility from birds. We have removed a couple hundred trees but there are still hundreds of trees that create a closed canopy over about half of the lake.
We have installed a large paddle wheel aerator (good for about 12 acres) and have a DO meter to check oxygen levels when needed. I have some aquaculture/fisheries experience and a degree in wildlife and fisheries so I have a decent idea of how things work.
The lake was drained and reworked (trenches, etc) and stocked 2 years ago with LMB, HSB, CNBG, RES, TFS and FHM. After stocking we experienced a problem with our drain pipe and the neighboring bayou backfed into the lake on several high water events. As a result we inherited white crappie (WCP), bullhead catfish (BH) golden shiner (GSH), gizzard shad (GSD), green sunfish (GSF) and probably some other unwelcomed species. I recently cast netted several large GSD that were in the process of spawning.
I have done quiet a bit of reading on other sites as well as old PB threads in an attempt to better educate myself on how to manage our current situation. We have heavy algal blooms so my initial thought was that we had unlimited food for the shad. The plan was and may still be to let the bass do their thing without removing any for at least the first 3 or 4 years to see if they can make a dent in all this food. I'm a little worried that the GSH may eat all of the larger zooplankton that our young CNBG and other fish will need. When we stocked we went with, 3/4 of the bass being F1 LMB and the other 1/4 were straight Florida LMB. We are catching some really healthy LMB and HSB but they are sometimes hard to catch or find, I'm assuming this is because they are loaded with shad, etc. and aren't hungry. Would we be asking for trouble if we didn't take out bass for another year or two? Should I consider trying to remove some the larger shad by shocking, netting, etc? Any thoughts or advise on how best to proceed would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ben
| 
